Ray Edwards: I am better than I deserve but not quite as good as I hope to be.
Ralph Zuranski: You know, I’ve seen you at a lot of the Internet conferences and you are sort of one of the unsung heroes of copywriting. You sort of hide behind the scenery and do a great job at persuading people through your copywriting. Could you tell us a little bit about how your copywriting is different and what exactly it is?
Ray Edwards: Well, absolutely. I would be happy to do that and let me start by saying that I am honored that you asked me to be part of this program. I admire what you are doing. It was really a pleasure when you asked me to be part of it so thank you for that.
Ralph Zuranski: You are very welcome.
Ray Edwards: What I do and what copywriters in general do is that we persuade people in print. That is the most basic definition. It can be more things than that.
Ray Edwards: Basically copywriting is the art of persuasion using language. You might do it in print on paper, or you might do it on the web, or you might do it on audio, but it is all essentially the same skill. The distinction that I make between what I do and what others do is that I draw a distinction between persuasion and manipulation.
Ray Edwards: Let me just say that there are many great copywriters, people whom I admire and are my friends and who I believe are very ethical and who do practice the art of persuasion as opposed to what I feel is the darker art of manipulation. Here is the difference. This is the way that I define these two words. This is not what you will probably find in the dictionary.
Ray Edwards: To me, the art of persuasion means giving people the reasoning, the emotional freedom and the ability to do things that are right for them that they truly deep down want to do anyway versus what I call the dark art of manipulation which is basically tricking people into doing things that are not good for them and perhaps don’t want to do.
Ray Edwards: There are definitely techniques that writers can use to manipulate people and that speakers can use to manipulate people. I don’t practice those particular arts, but I think copywriting is the art of persuasion and anyone who has a product for sale or a service for sale can appreciate the fact that most of the people that they end up doing business with were not ready to do business at the very beginning of the process.
Ray Edwards: They had to go through a sequence of events. They first had to get to know the person or the product or the service. They had then to come to a point where they liked the person or they liked the idea of the process of the service. They had to reach another point where they trusted in the person, process or service. Then they bought.
Ray Edwards: Jim Edwards, who is no relation or no relation that I am aware of is a great marketer and a really stand up guy and a great human being. He sums up the process like this: Know me, like me, trust me, pay me. To me that is the greatest summary of salesmanship that I’ve found anywhere. That’s the process.
Ray Edwards: My job as the copywriter is to put the words on paper or onto the computer screen that lets people know you, like you, trust you and pay you. I specialize in writing copy for the Web and for Web sites in particular and for the whole process that moves people along that continuum.
Ralph Zuranski: So what you basically do is you write the sales page, the landing page and then the auto responders also?
Ray Edwards: Yes. Ideally the way I explain it is that selling to anyone is a process. It’s the process that I just described. For me to be the most effective copywriter that I can possibly be for my clients, I need to be able to write the copy for all the parts of the process.
Ray Edwards: Each step along the way is an opportunity to either move your prospect closer to a buying decision or further away from a buying decision. Ideally I like to write the landing page which intrigues the prospect and gets them to share their contact information so that we can have an ongoing conversation.
Ray Edwards: I like to write the pre-sale auto responder series that lets them get to know you, trust you, and like you; the sales page which explains the offer in detail and walks them through that buying process and the order page which is crucial. This is where so many orders are lost on line.
Ray Edwards: It is estimated by people who are much smarter, with bigger research budgets than mine that over 60% of online shoppers abandon their shopping experience on the order page before they have clicked the ‘Buy now’ button. The thank you page is after you have made your purchase and you are wondering at that moment in time, “Hey, did I just do a good thing or did I do a dumb thing?”
Ray Edwards: Then the follow up auto responders which keep in contact with the prospect now that they are a client or a customer and reassure them and let them know that you are there on the other end to help them through whatever questions or challenges they might have with your product or service.
Ray Edwards: I walk them all the way through that process and the goal is to achieve a higher response rate, more sales and a lower refund request rate – the people who are dissatisfied with the product after the process happens. This is best way I have found to lower refund rates. I’m assuming that you have a good product to start with. We are assuming there is not a problem with the actual product or service itself.
Ray Edwards: What people really want is they want human contact. They want to know that you are still there and that you didn’t just take their money and now you are going to go away. That is what the post sale auto responder sequence is all about.
Ray Edwards: Yes, I like to write through that entire process.
Ralph Zuranski: Is there a training course or something that you offer?
Ray Edwards: Well, I don’t have a training course for sale currently. I do have a training course that I have been developing to help people understand this process. That will be available in the near future.
Ray Edwards: For those that are interested it will be available at http://PowerCopySecrets.com.
Ralph Zuranski: Is that your Web site?
Ray Edwards: That is a Web site for that particular product. There is actually nothing at the Web site at the time we are doing this interview, but there will be very shortly.
Ralph Zuranski: Oh, great!
Ray Edwards: My main Web site for my services when people want to get in contact with me or have questions for me is http://RayEdwardsCopywriting.com.
Ralph Zuranski: Great. Ray, let me ask you one of the first questions. What is your definition of heroism?
Ray Edwards: Well, that is such a deep and powerful question, Ralph. I think as people we tend to dismiss it. We talk about heroes in a way that I feel almost devalues what true heroes are. We talk about sports figures and actors and rap singers and all sorts of different people as being heroes.
Ray Edwards: Often times I think that kind of definition is misplaced. I will start by saying that while I deeply appreciate you asking me to be part of this program, I’m pretty sure that I don’t qualify for the title of hero. I’m deeply flattered that you asked me to be part of what you are doing. I do admire that and I do think that there is heroism in that.
Ray Edwards: As for what a hero is, if you look in the dictionary you’ll find that heroes are people who are endowed with great courage and strength and they are celebrated by their bold exploits. I think that is a good starting definition.
Ray Edwards: In my mind, heroes are people who are endowed with great courage and strength and who follow through on the conviction of that courage and who have ideals that they strive to live up to and set an example for other people to follow. To me that is what we all need.
Ray Edwards: I think that everybody wants to be a good person. Everybody wants to be the best person that they can be. I think that people are basically born with an inner desire to be good and to do good.
Ray Edwards: That is why I believe that we are always looking for heroes to follow. We want an example that not only shows us what to do but also shows us that it is possible to do it.
Ralph Zuranski: You know I really agree with that. I think that a lot of the people that I have asked to be heroes, one of my major reason for doing that is asking people who are successful in what they do, who love the work that they are doing their best in and finding out who they think are real heroes. You never know until you ask somebody.
Ralph Zuranski: When you ask somebody if they would like to be recognized as a hero it tells you a lot about that person if they are even willing to take a shot at that particular recognition. My definition of hero was an acronym of someone that helps enthusiastically, responsibly, optimistically, exceptionally, socially and or spiritually.
Ralph Zuranski: Anybody can be a hero at any moment in time when they go out of their way to help somebody else no matter what it is. Just in one small instant they can become a hero at that moment in time. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they are always going to be a hero but in that moment in time they were a hero to someone.
Ralph Zuranski: Did you ever create a secret hero in your mind that helped you deal with life difficulties? We don’t really know much about your original upbringing or background, but I know that mine was pretty tough and I had a lot of difficult times. The secret hero in my mind I eventually found out was my right brain that came to my aid. Did you ever do anything like that?
Ray Edwards: That is such an interesting question. I cannot say that I had a secret hero or someone that I created in my mind, but I was blessed in a couple of ways, Ralph. First of all there were aspects of my upbringing that were kind of tough. I grew up in Eastern Kentucky and that is an impoverished part of the country.
Ray Edwards: We were fortunate. We didn’t live in poverty, but in a lot of ways it is a hard place to live. We moved around a lot. My dad was in the Marine Corps and that involved a lot of moving.
Ray Edwards: I was blessed with a grandfather who absolutely was one of the primary heroes in my life. He was a man who worked his way up from abject poverty and lived through the great Depression and World War II. Here was a man who saw the world transition from horse and buggy to the space shuttle and the Internet. He went along for most of that ride.
Ray Edwards: He loved the Internet and he loved computers. He has passed on now, but he was a great inspiration to me when I grew up. He taught me the meaning of right and wrong. He was a devout Christian and he wanted me to share that faith. He always took the time to walk me through why he did the things that he did and to try to teach me.
Ray Edwards: For some reason he was able to do that in a way that did not seem preachy or sanctimonious. I just felt the true love that radiated from those times and it made a huge difference in my life. I don’t think that I had a secret hero as much as I had a very real hero.
Ray Edwards: He didn’t wear a cape and he didn’t leap tall buildings in a single bound, but I’ll tell you what, for the first 12 years of my life I would have believed it if you told me he did.
Ralph Zuranski: What is your perspective on goodness, ethics and moral behavior?
Ray Edwards: I’m not going to be careful in my answer and I know that some people won’t share my beliefs on this particular topic and that’s okay. I’m not about trying to make people wrong if they don’t believe the same things that I believe.
Ray Edwards: I think that goodness and ethics and moral behavior all spring from a common place. I think that we are all born with an innate desire, as I indicated before, to be good, to do good, to be ethical, and to be moral. I believe that desire was placed there by God.
Ray Edwards: I think that all of the different ways that we strive to achieve goodness and ethical behavior and moral behavior and to be in the right and the thing that is inside of us when we see injustice being perpetrated on another person that cries out and says, “No, that’s wrong! That’s got to stop.”
Ray Edwards: I don’t think that is a learned response. I think that is a built in response. That’s where I believe that the desire to do good and to be ethical and moral comes from. I think that we are all, each of us in our own way, trying to work toward that end.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you think it is sort of a self conscious mind where everybody has an innate ability to determine what is right and what is wrong?
Ray Edwards: Yes. I think we have the choice to do right or to do wrong. I personally believe that there are absolute rights and absolute wrongs. That is my belief.
Ray Edwards: There are really smart people that I respect who hold a different belief but I don’t think that it is a matter of relativism in most cases. I think that part of our journey as human beings is to find a way to the place where right and good and ethical and moral behavior comes from.
Ralph Zuranski: What principles are you willing to sacrifice your life for? I know a lot of people talk about running into a burning building or pulling somebody out of the top of a car. What is your perspective on sacrificing your life?
Ray Edwards: Well, it’s an interesting question, Ralph, because I know what in principle I would say. I always wonder what I would do if I was really faced with a choice. I think we all like to imagine ourselves as the hero of the story in the movies.
Ray Edwards: I am the guy sitting in the movie theatre watching the hero thinking, “Would I do that?” I would like to think that I would, but would I really? There are some things that I know that I would readily sacrifice my life for without a moments hesitation and those are people. Those are the people that I love, my family, my wife, my son, my mother, my brothers, my friends.
Ray Edwards: A very influential person in my life and one of my heroes is a man most of us know as Jesus Christ. He said, “Greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for a friend.” I believe that to be true.
Ray Edwards: It’s interesting that we build up castles in our mind about what we think is important. Sometimes the simplest things will clarify them. There is a gentleman for whom I have a lot of respect named Steven Pierce. He talks about how people make decisions about what they are willing to do and what they are willing to take action for without thinking.
Ray Edwards: He gives an example. He says if you were sitting on your front porch and your little girl was playing out in the street and you looked up the hill and noticed that a car had popped out of gear and was rolling down the hill toward your little girl what would you do?
Ray Edwards: The answer, of course, is that you would immediately spring from your porch, run across the yard, run across the street and grab your little girl and pull her out of harm’s way. You wouldn’t think about all of the obstacles.
Ray Edwards: I would have to jump off the porch and I might break my leg. I will have to jump over that fire hydrant, and I have to go around that car. What if that dog next door chases me and bites my ankle?
Ray Edwards: You wouldn’t think about any of that stuff. You would just instinctively jump into action. I think that is because deep inside of us we all know clearly what the important things are. Sometimes it is those kinds of stark situations that bring that to light.
Ralph Zuranski: Right. Steven is one of the heroes that I interviewed. He really actually has sort of a heroic life. We learned about what was the lowest point in his life.
Ray Edwards: He certainly does.
Ralph Zuranski: He goes through and shares that with power and conviction and it’s pretty astounding. What is the lowest point in your life and how did you change your life and win a victory over all obstacles?
Ray Edwards: Oh boy! The lowest point in my life was probably, not probably, it definitely was right after I graduated from high school because my parents had divorced at this time. It was not the most pleasant of divorces. I was really on my own even before graduating from high school. Really at about the age of 16, I was left to my own devices.
Ray Edwards: I had grown up thinking that I was going to live the dream of the American middle class. I was going to go to college and it would be paid for. And I would be able to party and have a great time like everybody who goes to college does and then go out and get a job and start my quote ‘real middle class life’.
Ray Edwards: Of course, God has a way of sometimes having another plan that we didn’t anticipate. In fact, I think that someone once said that if you want to make God laugh, just tell him what your plans are. I was on my own. I was working at a radio station. I started working in the radio business when I was 14 years old.
Ray Edwards: I had some money and was able to find a place to live and so forth, but I was really lost in a lot of ways. I had fallen away from my faith in God and the things that had carried me through thus far. I didn’t have a whole lot of money and I was definitely enjoying partying and having a good time.
Ray Edwards: I came to a point where I realized, “Boy, this is not the life that I was destined to have.” I just felt that there was something more for me and that I wasn’t living up to the potential that I had been given. Slowly I began to put the pieces back together.
Ray Edwards: Most of the credit for that goes to my wife whom I met at a young age. We met when I was 18 years old and we married shortly there after. I am fond of telling people that it has worked out for 21 years, so we think it is probably going to be okay. We think the marriage is probably going to work.
Ray Edwards: She has been a tremendous inspiration to me in my life and helped me live up to my potential. It was a struggle for a lot of years monetarily, but I moved to a bigger city and got a better job in the radio business. I began to climb the ranks in that business.
Ray Edwards: It’s interesting, Ralph, something that I have found. I certainly don’t set myself up as some kind of paragon of virtue because I’m far from it, but I know this. The closer I stay to my principles, the closer I stay to the things that I know are right and true, the more I am rewarded.
Ray Edwards: That may be financially sometimes, but it can also be spiritually in the amount of peace that a person has in their life. It can also be in the amount of good that you can do in the lives of others. There really is no greater reward than to know that you made a positive difference in someone’s life.
Ray Edwards: I know that sounds Pollyannaish. I will share an experience that I had a couple of nights ago. Again, please, I hope that nobody listens to this and thinks, “Wow, Ray is really full of himself and thinks he is such a great guy.” Trust me, I know me and I’ve got lots of room for improvement.
Ralph Zuranski: Don’t we all?
Ray Edwards: I just had this principle of how it is built into us to want to help other people and to feel good when we know we have. It was a simple thing. I bought some take out food from a Chinese restaurant, and I went into the restaurant to pick it up. The young lady gave me my order and I was paying.
Ray Edwards: I don’t know if you really tip in this situation. Really, all she did was bring out the bag from the kitchen to the cash register and she rang me up. I’m going to take it home so there isn’t really any service but I thought, “I don’t know if it is right or wrong but I’m going to leave a tip.”
Ray Edwards: I’m a pretty generous tipper and that’s because of my wife too. I definitely was not a generous tipper until meeting my wife. She had a chance to work as a server in a restaurant during her college years and informed me that those folks work hard so you need to tip them.
Ray Edwards: So, I tip 20% always. Not only do I think it is the right thing to do, but I think the math is easy to do.
Ray Edwards: I left this lady a 20% tip and as I was turning to leave she stopped me and she said, “You have no idea what this means to me.” I turned and looked back and she had tears coming from her eyes over a tip at a restaurant. She said, “Thank you,” and I said, “You’re welcome.”
Ray Edwards: As I left I saw that she went running to the back of the store and she was jumping up and down showing the other servers. It’s not that I think that was such a great thing that I did. My point is that you never know what things you can do, what small things you might be able to do that might mean so much to other people.
Ralph Zuranski: Are you talking about random acts of kindness?
Ray Edwards: Well, I guess I am. I don’t know that I would have called it that but yes. I think that is exactly it. You just never know.
Ray Edwards: Leaving that tip honestly was not a big deal for me. I don’t think that was such a big thing but obviously it meant a lot more than that to the recipient.
Ralph Zuranski: What is the dream or vision that sets the course of your life?
Ray Edwards: I know how this is going to sound. I’ve been thinking about it because I knew you were going to ask this question. How will I answer that without sounding like I’ve got some grandiose ideas about myself?
Ray Edwards: Here is what it truly is. The larger vision, I’m not talking about the short term goals. We all have those I would presume.
Ray Edwards: My vision for my life is to be able to fulfill the purpose that God has for me, to be able to help as many people as I possibly can in whatever ways I possibly can and to enjoy the fulfillment and the freedom that living that dream gives to me. I think that while that might sound like a really generalized answer to the questions, for me at least it is very specific.
Ray Edwards: It’s taken me a long time to arrive at a place where I know clearly what I want to do with my life. Now, there are a lot of details that we are not talking about that go into supporting that. I think that is where the true rewards come in.
Ray Edwards: I have financial goal. I have a car that I want. We have a vacation we want to take and things like that but to me, those are truly sign posts along the way. Those are not the end of the journey.
Ralph Zuranski: You know I really agree with that. That’s my perspective in life also. Do you take a positive view of the set backs and the mistakes that you’ve made? How important is that for people to take a positive view?
Ray Edwards: Absolutely I do, Ralph. I think that to view your mistakes or your setbacks as anything other than learning experiences just doesn’t help you. I am not talking from a spiritual standpoint now. I am being very practical.
Ray Edwards: If I were to take the mistakes that I’ve made and beat myself up over them or to lament them and really spend time dwelling on how stupid I was, because there are plenty of episodes in my life where I could show you I was stupid. If I didn’t take those experiences and learn something from them then they truly were stupid mistakes.
Ray Edwards: But I believe that if we take our mistakes and learn a lesson from them so that we don’t make the same mistakes again or so that we can help someone else not make the same mistakes, then I believe they were valuable learning experiences. I think it is true of setbacks too.
Ray Edwards: We have setbacks in our life that have nothing to do with our making a mistake. It’s just that sometimes whether we understand it or not, sometimes bad things happen to good people. There is a book written by Rabbi Kushner on that very subject. It’s one of the influential books in my life because that was a question that I always had. Why does bad stuff happen to good people?
Ray Edwards: I don’t think that we always know the answer to that question. I’m not sure that it is a productive question to ask. I think it is important and productive to realize that bad things do happen to good people and truly they can be what we make of them.
Ray Edwards: The world is full of stories that you and I are both familiar with of people who were handed the lousiest hand in the poker game of life that you could possible ask for. They were given terrible challenges to overcome, physical impediments, emotional impediments, being born in the midst of a war torn third world country or having a terrible disease.
Ray Edwards: I am not saying that there are good things about those afflictions. What I am saying is that I believe the human spirit can find positive meaning even in the worst experiences. Look at Victor Franko who was in a Nazi concentration camp and took away from that experience the ideas and the emotions and the wisdom that caused him to write a book called Man’s Search for Meaning.
Ray Edwards: I truly believe that we need to take a view of our set backs, our challenges and our problems and ask ourselves, “What can I learn from this? What can I make of this? How can this be useful to me or to someone else?”
Ray Edwards: I know that is not always the easiest thing to do. Certainly in my life even though I have known those ideas and those principles for a long time, I know that when the chips are down and things are really tough, sometimes it’s hard to remember to do that. That is a challenge that I think is worth pursuing.
Ralph Zuranski: How important is optimism when you are going through something like that?
Ray Edwards: Well, I believe that it is key. It is really hard to maintain when you are going through something tough. Most of us have been through something tough either an illness or a tragedy, a loss of a loved one or someone else’s illness or financial horror stories.
Ray Edwards: We have all been through or will go through something that is very difficult. Sometimes it seems almost impossible. It’s not always easy to hold on to one’s optimism but from what I have learned and from what I have seen in people who are much more accomplished than I am and who I try to emulate, it just seems to me that if you are optimistic that you are able to tap into more of the resources, that will allow you to overcome that situation even if it is just a matter of surviving the situation.
Ray Edwards: I think being pessimistic does the opposite. I think it robs you of your resources. It robs you of being able to perform at the highest levels of your abilities in any given situation as bad as it seems. So, I think that is why it is so important for us not to give up hope. That is what optimism is about to me. It’s having hope.
Ralph Zuranski: How important is it to have courage to pursue new ideas? I know that a lot of people are sort of locked into positions in life. They are restrained by their family and their friends and their peer group. Sometimes it is quite frightening to pursue new ideas. What do you think about the importance of courage?
Ray Edwards: I know that it is absolutely one of the most important qualities to have and one of the qualities that I struggle to have and to maintain myself. I think when faced with the unknown and faced with a challenge, we all might innately feel optimistic about it, and we might innately have hope.
Ray Edwards: Courage comes in when you act despite the fear. It doesn’t mean that you have no fear. It means that you have fear and you took the action anyway because you had hope and you had faith that it would turn out.
Ray Edwards: By the way, faith doesn’t mean that you are absolutely certain and you have no doubts whatsoever about the series of events or about the outcome of a decision. Faith is about nurturing the hope and the belief that you hold to in your heart. It is not unwavering.
Ray Edwards: That is why it requires courage to go out and try things, to do things that you are not certain what the outcome will be. We’ve got the courage to go ahead and step forward and it’s the hardest thing. I would just say that if you have a deep conviction in your heart and you know, Ralph, it’s funny, it’s been said that we teach what we most need to learn.
Ray Edwards: As I am saying these things I realize that I have got so far to go and that I’m talking about things I need to learn at a deeper level myself. Right now at this moment in my life and I’m sure this is probably true for you and for everybody who might listen to this, even at this moment in my life I have decisions that I need to make.
Ray Edwards: Part of what needs to happen is that I need to say, “I’m not sure how this is going to turn out but I have knowledge that supports it.” I have faith and hope that support it and I’m going to have the courage to step out forward and try it because if we don’t try it we will never know.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you think that requires a willingness to experience discomfort in the pursuit of the dream? We know if we are going to have the courage to pursue new ideas that things are going to change and there is going to be a lot of side effects that we had no idea would ever occur.
Ray Edwards: I could not have said it better. You are absolutely right about that. Anthony Robbins is a person for whom I have deep respect. I have learned so much from his seminars, books and tapes. I know he is lampooned often and made fun of as the eight foot tall guy with big teeth on late night TV.
Ray Edwards: He is a person who has made so many distinctions about what drives human performance. He says in one of his seminar events and I don’t know if this is on any of the tape programs or not but in one of his seminars he said something that has stuck with me since that time. He said, “The level of success that you will experience in your life is directly proportional to the amount of uncertainty you can tolerate.”
Ray Edwards: What that says to me is that you have to be willing to take the risk. You can be certain of this. Sometimes things are not going to work out. Sometimes the outcome is going to be unpleasant. I think that is the uncertainty that he is talking about.
Ray Edwards: As much uncertainty as you can reasonably tolerate is going to accelerate your progress toward your goals whether they be financial, personal, relationship oriented, spiritual or personal, or if you are trying to achieve some kind of positive and good work in the world. If you are working for a charitable movement or something like that and to me this is all according to what I do because as a copywriter what I do is persuade people.
Ray Edwards: It’s not just for money oriented things. Sometimes I’m writing for a cause and I am not being compensated financially. I will give you a for instance. I wrote the copy for Steven Pierce’s relief call that he did for Hurricane Katrina. I don’t know if you remember that or not.
Ralph Zuranski: I do. It was very well done.
Ray Edwards: It was right after the hurricane and that call generated over $600,000 in donations for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. When I was writing that copy I was not motivated by money. Yes, people would know that I wrote the copy and I guess that may or may not have some kind of monetary effect down the line.
Ray Edwards: The truth of the matter is that was not the foremost thought on my mind when I wrote the copy. The foremost thing was I think we can do a good thing here.
Ray Edwards: Regardless of your aim or your goal or what you are trying to accomplish, whether it’s got to do with finances, whether you are trying to make money in your business, whether it’s got to do with relationships or whether it’s a good work that you are doing like when Steven was doing relief work for Hurricane Katrina there is always the risk that things will not work out the way you envision it. It takes courage.
Ray Edwards: It took courage for Steven to do that program because there were critics of it. There were people who said, “He’s just trying to make money off of that.” No he wasn’t. Steven Pierce did not make a single dime from that call and neither did anyone else involved.
Yet there were critics on the sidelines who were saying that it was so but of course it wasn’t so. It took courage and he knew that in advance. But he also knew that, “Hey, I have the ability to help these people in a significant way and I’m going to step up to the plate and have the courage to do it.”
Ralph Zuranski: When people have courage they also need to have dreams. How important is it that people need to believe that their dreams will eventually become reality?
Ray Edwards: Well, there is a great book that I try to live my life by. That book says that without a vision the people will perish. Regardless of your religious beliefs, whether you believe that the Bible is the rule and guide of your life, I don’t think that very many people would argue with that particular passage.
Ray Edwards: If you have no vision, which that is what a dream is, it’s a vision of your future then you will perish, if not physically right away, you will perish emotionally and spiritually. Think about it. If you have no purpose in your life, what are you living for?
Ray Edwards: I believe that our dreams, our vision if you will, that is what drives us to do what we do. I kind of from time to time sit back and evaluate where I am in life. I ask myself, “Why is it that I am at this place?”
Ray Edwards: Usually if I am dissatisfied it is either because I have lost sight of my vision or my dream or it’s changed and I have not recognized that and I am not living in congruence of what that dream or that vision is.
Ralph Zuranski: One of the things that usually affect people’s pursuit of their dreams is the doubts and the fears that assail everybody. What have you found is the best way to overcome your doubts and fears?
Ray Edwards: That may be the most powerful question that I think you have asked so far.
Ralph Zuranski: It’s a hard one.
Ray Edwards: It is very hard and I don’t have one single answer that I can give. I can give you some of the things that I have done that have helped me overcome doubts and look I certainly still have them. I certainly still experience them.
Ray Edwards: These are things that I am still working on so I don’t want to come across as thinking that I’m the guy who has got all of the answers because I am definitely not that guy. Let’s go ahead and clear that up right now. I have some answers that worked for me and maybe they will be helpful to others.
Ray Edwards: The first thing is for me anyway, I believe that you have to have an ultimate purpose for your life. It’s got to be something beyond making money or having a bigger house or anything like that. Those are all nice things. I don’t think there is anything wrong with having a nice house. I don’t think there is anything wrong with having money.
Ray Edwards: For me, the ultimate purpose in my life is something bigger than that. It is encapsulated in a person who walked this earth over 2,000 years ago and his name was Jesus Christ. That is the first thing.
Ray Edwards: That doesn’t mean that I am without doubts though or without fears because I’m not. That’s the first place I go to overcome those fears and I do that through prayer and reading the scripture and confessing to other people when I have the opportunity that Jesus is my Lord and life.
Ray Edwards: Now, beyond that what do I do? I try to surround myself with people who are positive, who share the same values, goals and dreams that I share, who encourage me and who will serve as an inspiration and also as a resource, people that I can talk to about those dreams. I think that it is important.
Ray Edwards: If you surround yourself with people who don’t share your dream, for instance if you have a business that you are trying to build and become independent from having a job and I know that will be the case for many people who listen to this interview. If you are only surrounded by people who are telling you that you cannot do it, it’s going to be really tough for you to pull it off.
Ray Edwards: That doesn’t mean that you have to excommunicate those people from your life. Sometimes those people are your family.
Ray Edwards: Sometimes it’s our spouse or our mom or our dad or our brother saying, “Oh, come on. That’s crazy. You are trying to do what?”
Ralph Zuranski: Most of the time it is.
Ray Edwards: You know, “You are trying to have an Internet business? What is that? Porn? What is that?” They don’t even understand what it is that you are trying to do.
Ray Edwards: So, I’m no saying that you have to run those people out of your life but I’m saying that you have tune those messages out and you have to find other people to help support you in what you are doing.
Ralph Zuranski: Who other than your grandpa and your wife are the people that helped you have the will power to make your life better?
Ray Edwards: Boy, that is a little bit of a longer list. Let’s see. There is my mother and my father. I have some tremendous friends. I have a mentor who has been key in helping me achieve greater levels of success than I thought I was capable of and that’s a gentleman named Steve Cody.
Ray Edwards: He was the general manager of a radio station that I went to work for in Washington State when I moved across the country with my family. He turned out to be not just the best employer that I had, but he turned out to be a mentor in the world of business. He turned out to be a very close friend and certainly somebody who lives by a distance set of principles and embodies everything that we’ve been talking about.
Ray Edwards: He really gave me the vision to be able to realize that I could go on to be not just a disk jockey or a program director, but a general manager and that I could run a group of stations, brought in revenues of over six million dollars a year.
Ray Edwards: There was a time in my life that I didn’t think I would be capable of doing something like that. To go on to become even a vice-president of a company and to strike out on my own and a real inspiration and a guy that I think I need to give a lot of credit for the success that I’ve had in my life.
Ray Edwards: Beyond that I’ve made some tremendous friends who have become deep influences in my life today. I always hesitate to start listing off names because I’m afraid that I will leave somebody off the list. But, Ralph, you are certainly one of those people. We have not known each other for a long time but what an inspiration you have become to me.
Ralph Zuranski: Thank you.
Ray Edwards: Other people like Michael Fortin who has become a dear friend both he and his fiancée Silvee, Armand Morin, Alex Mandossian, Stu Mclaren, and Dave Bernstein who is better known by some as DJ Dave.
Ralph Zuranski: I just interviewed him.
Ray Edwards: Well, he and I are working on a project together. That came out of becoming friends and learning that we had such similar interests. I would also put Willie Crawford on that list of people. Mike Littman, Matt Bacak and that’s interesting.
Ray Edwards: All of those people came into my life because I got out into an environment of going to seminars. Guess what I was doing? I was meeting with like minded people just like I was talking about before. I needed the influence of other people who had the same goals and aspirations that I do.
Ray Edwards: Lorrie Morgan Ferraro whom I’ve gotten to know really well has gotten to be a true inspiration to me. She is really a fabulous copywriter and one of the best people that I know. All of these people are inspirations to me and they helped me. Some of them know it and some of them don’t even recognize what a help they have been to me.
Ray Edwards: Certainly when you surround yourself with and put yourself in an environment where you can meet those kinds of people things happen that almost seem unnatural.
Ralph Zuranski: Isn’t that true and a lot of those people I have already either interviewed or are on tap to be interviewed as heroes that I met on the Internet. It’s amazing. If anybody ever gets a chance to listen to Lorrie’s interview it was pretty astounding. Hers and Steven Pierce’s both were some of the most incredible that I have done so far.
Ralph Zuranski: How important is it to forgive those who upset and offend you and oppose you. I know that we all have adversaries in our lives. Sometimes it’s really hard to deal with those people especially when they are within our own family.
Ray Edwards: Oh boy. That is so important that I am absolutely convinced that I’m not going to do it justice. I have been to a place in my life. When I grew up, Ralph, I was raised in the church. I grew up believing all of the things that I was taught in church as being true just by assumption because the adults in my life told me they were true.
Ray Edwards: Then I went through a period where it seemed that my life was falling apart. My family was breaking up. My parents were getting a divorce. I was getting involved in all kinds of things that I’m not proud of and wish that I had never been involved in. I was at a place where I felt like the world was not a nice place to be.
Ray Edwards: For a long time I was bitter about that. I’ve never admitted this in public before and Mom, if you are listening, I hope you will listen to the whole thing, not just to what I’m about to say. I blamed my parents. I was very angry. I felt like they had cheated me out of the life that should have been mine.
Ray Edwards: I blamed other people. I could give you a long list. I won’the, but I could. I was very angry. I was bitter and cynical and I blamed the church. I had a long list of people who were at fault for the bad things that happened to me. Of course, the one name that was missing from that list was mine.
Ray Edwards: When I was able to really let go of all of that and really forgive what I perceived as things that were done to me, wrong and forgive my parents. I then reached a point where I realized that maybe there was no justification in my being angry to begin with. Maybe the appropriate emotion to feel would have been love for them and understanding the pain that they were going through.
Ray Edwards: I know some listening to this would be tempted to say, “Come on. I know that because I’ve been there. I’ve been that person. Come on. Don’t give me that garbage.” I don’t know that anybody would listen to a word I’ve said with any kind of credit but if you will, just listen to this.
Ray Edwards: If you could just let go of the anger and the bitterness and if you will just forgive whatever you perceive as the things that have been done wrong to you, the freedom that you will experience is so great that just for selfish reasons I urge you to forgive other people. Something else rushes in to fill the gap and that thing is love and tremendous respect and tenderness about how other people’s hearts are placed in our care. We often don’t know it.
Ray Edwards: It’s like that experience that I had with that young lady at the Chinese restaurant. Again, I’m not trying to take any credit for having done a great thing. It was a small kindness and yet look at the difference that it made to her.
Ray Edwards: I’ve experienced that in my own life. I’ve had people send me a check for $20 when it was no big deal for them but it brought tears to my eyes because I needed that $20.
Ralph Zuranski: You know that’s so true. It’s funny when you are pointing your finger at somebody else you have three fingers pointing back at you. Don’t you agree that when you are able to forgive others for the evil that they have done to you as you have perceived it, it may not have even been evil on their part? It’s just your perspective on the issue and that it totally transformed their lives at the same time that it transformed yours.
Ray Edwards: Absolutely true. I don’t have this mastered yet. I still get angry.
Ralph Zuranski: Boy, don’t we all.
Ray Edwards: I still catch myself sometimes even without thinking, assigning blame and then I realize, “Wait a minute, I think I had a part in this too!”
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah, boy that is so true isn’t it.
Ray Edwards: Yeah.
Ralph Zuranski: How important is serving others as a source of joy in the person’s life?
Ray Edwards: It’s of the utmost importance. I have found that when I am totally focused on myself that is when my life seems to be its worst. I know that is hard to believe at least it was hard for me to believe. I went through a period where…boy Ralph.
Ray Edwards: You’ve got some kind of voodoo. I’ve told you all kinds of things that I have never told anybody before. I know other people are going to be listening to this.
Ralph Zuranski: It’s not voodoo. It’s just a love of people and a desire to pull those golden nuggets out of people’s hearts that will make such a big impact on people that are listening to this.
Ray Edwards: You definitely have a gift for it. I tell you, I struggled with depression for a period and I realized that is something that has been present in my life as far back as I can remember but never like it was after the fall of 2001. You can fill in the blanks and figure out the reasons.
Ray Edwards: There were a lot of things that came into play there and part of it had to do with what happened at the World Trade Center. Part of it had to do with losing my grandfather to Alzheimer’s which was truly one of the hardest things that I have ever had to face.
Ray Edwards: I saw a professional and I was treated and went through some counseling. What I discovered surprised me completely and it was this. It was that if I focused on serving other people, if I made the purpose for what I did serving other people that lifted such a veil of pain and despair from my life.
Ray Edwards: Now, it may not be that dramatic for everybody. I understand that and I respect that and I’ve got my story. I don’t remember who said that but maybe it was Carl Bark who said the story of your life is not your life it’s just your story.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah.
Ray Edwards: But for me that’s the most valuable lesson that I think I have ever learned. It’s what I struggle to remember every single day. It’s what I focus on. When you asked me what my vision was you go back to that and you realize that my vision is in alignment with this principle that we are talking about.
Ralph Zuranski: Depression is a hard thing for a lot of people. I know that I’ve suffered from it for most of my life. One of the things that has helped me a lot is as you say, being of service to others.
Ralph Zuranski: One of the other things that has helped me as well is the power of prayer. I know that you have mentioned the power of prayer in your life. How does that work in your life?
Ray Edwards: Well, to me prayer is the time that I set aside for being with God. To me it isn’t about reciting some rote words that I learned when I was in Sunday school. God is a real person to me and we have a relationship.
Ray Edwards: I can tell you for sure that when I spend time everyday with God and I read his Word and I pray which involves both me talking and me listening and searching for what God is trying to say to me, when I do that, all of the other issues and problems that I have dealt with become a lot easier for me to handle.
Ray Edwards: I don’t mean that all of my problems go away because that is certainly not the case. I’ve got challenges in my life like everybody else does but I do mean when it comes to staying focused on the love that I know our creator has for us and the love that He wants us to have for each other, remember that the greatest commandment is to love one another as you love yourself.
Ralph Zuranski: That’s a hard one.
Ray Edwards: It’s very hard. It’s very difficult, but prayer is what allows me to stay focused on that. It allows me to clear my heart of anger and bitterness. It reconnects me with what is truly important in life.
Ray Edwards: I can tell you this for sure. Some days when I think I’m too busy I say, “Sorry God, I’m too busy for you today.” I’ll just check in with a, “Hi, how are you doing? Things are going well and I’ll talk to you later.”
Ray Edwards: I don’t mean to be trivial but for me at least sometimes I’m guilty of that. That’s when I start feeling disconnected from what I feel is important in my life. That’s when I start to lose a grip on what gives me peace and joy in my life and the ability to slow down and enjoy the gifts that I’ve been given.
Ray Edwards: I realize, “Oh, it’s because I didn’t take that time to be in prayer and to reconnect with my creator and the core of my being.” The core of my being has nothing to do with this slightly overweight balding, middle aged guy who is determined not to have to buy the next size up in his blue jeans.
Ray Edwards: It’s got something to do with something deeper and I believe that is true for each and every one of us. There is something magical and wonderful and wondrous at the core of every single person. Part of our job here on planet Earth is to get back to that core of who we really are.
Ralph Zuranski: Well, you know that is so true. One of the things that I think most people don’t realize is that others are facing as serious or more serious problems than we are. Humor is one of the ways that we can turn life’s tide of grief into one of at least laughter. How important do you think that a sense of humor is in the face of difficult situations?
Ray Edwards: I think it is not the most important skills it is in the top three and I think it is a skill to learn to appreciate the humor of situations. I know that there are things that I laugh about now that five years ago would have just made me angry. My laughter now is genuine.
Ray Edwards: I have to thank God for giving me the gift of my wife who doesn’t even realize it I think. She has the gift of humor. I believe that humor is a spiritual gift. When something bad happens my wife’s first reaction is to laugh.
Ray Edwards: That used to irritate me so much. Now, every time it happens I am just thankful. I am just grateful. She was not put into my life by accident. She was put into my life because that is something that I need. That is not the only reason of course.
Ray Edwards: It’s interesting how intricately our lives are designed. I believe if you just look for the design you will find it. She gives me the ability to realize, “Hey, don’t take these things too seriously. If you do you will kill yourself.”
Ray Edwards: It’s not an accident that science is uncovering right now the fact that anger and bitterness and hatred and holding a grudge and all of those negative emotions kill you. They cause heart attacks, strokes and they deteriorate the strength of your immune system. I don’t think that is an accident.
Ralph Zuranski: I agree. That is really astounding what they have discovered. That is incredible, Ray. Are there any other heroes in your life other than the ones that you have mentioned so far?
Ray Edwards: Yes. There is one that I want to be certain that I mention and that is my son. He is 19 years old and I just get choked up talking about it because I am so proud of that young man.
Ray Edwards: He is not only handsome, but he is incredibly intelligent. I used to think I was the smart one in the family and I think that God sent my son along to put my in my place and teach me some humility.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah, kids do that.
Ray Edwards: He is incredibly intelligent and he is such a good person. Sometimes my wife and I will marvel and think, “How did such a good person manage to come from us?” because he humbles us. He is kind and generous. He is hard working.
Ray Edwards: He has a wonderful work ethic. Even as we speak right now, Ralph, he is in Amsterdam on a mission trip. This is spring break while we are talking right now. While his friends are on the beach in Mexico exploring new depths of debauchery, my son is with a group of young like minded people in Amsterdam taking the good news to people who many have never heard it before.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah.
Ray Edwards: Again, I admire him. He has a wonderful girlfriend that he has been dating now for quite some time. The maturity of their relationship, I look back at my own early relationships with the opposite sex and I just did not have the kind of mature grasp on relationships that young guy has.
Ray Edwards: So, I don’t know if that is weird or not, but he is definitely a hero in my life.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you feel that there are any other heroes in society that are not getting the recognition that they deserve?
Ray Edwards: Yes. That is an interesting question. I think there are plenty of them and I think that those are the people who are servants. Our society holds up as heroes the movie stars and rock stars and athletes.
Ray Edwards: There is nothing wrong with that. I think that in each of those categories there are people that deserve the title of being a hero. I think there are a lot fewer than the media would have us believe and certainly for different reasons than the media would have us believe.
Ray Edwards: The people that I think are really heroes that don’t get the recognition they deserve are the servants. I’m talking about the people who take care of the sick and the elderly, the people who minister both spiritually and very physically in a real way the poor and the handicapped, those who roll up their sleeves and go into a place like New Orleans after that tragedy there and go to work.
Ray Edwards: I’m going to be the first to admit that is not me. I don’t do those kinds of things. One of my goals in life is to get to that place. I have all kinds of excuses why I don’t do it.
Ray Edwards: I don’t have enough money. I can’t stop working yet. Those are things that I’ve got to work through. I realize that because we each have the ability to do I believe what we are willing to do.
Ray Edwards: We’ve got to sort out what we are meant to do too. Not everybody was meant for every kind of service. Also, I admire people who stand up for unpopular values that I think are important to the fabric of our country.
Ralph Zuranski: Thank you.
Ray Edwards: I don’t want to get off into a political rant or a deep, deep religious discussion but there are things that are happening in our country that I think are reprehensible. I am proud of and I am in admiration of the people who stand up and say, “This is not right, these kinds of injustices or endorsing this kind of behavior.”
Ray Edwards: There are unsung heroes everywhere and most of them are servants.
Ralph Zuranski: Why do you think that heroes are so important in the lives of young people?
Ray Edwards: Well, I think they are so important in the lives of young people Ralph because unfortunately I don’t think it is like it used to be even as recently as when you and I were growing up and we are both young whippersnappers. We had parents and grandparents to look up to who really lived out the virtues of honesty, integrity, work ethic, charity, love and patriotism.
Ray Edwards: Unfortunately many children today, if not the majority of children today grow up without those examples in their own homes within their own families. That abdicates those roles to whatever is available and in most cases what is available as role models for these young people is what they see on the Internet or what they see on MTV. Boy that worries me!
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah, me too.
Ray Edwards: It should worry all of us I think. I don’t want to come off as being critical of entertainment, critical of music because I love entertainment. I love music and believe it or not there is even some rap music that I like but so much of it is destructive and violent. It engenders hatred and those are terrible, terrible values.
Ray Edwards: Many of the people who espouse those values of hatred, lust and greed and being a criminal, many of those people are held up as heroes! I think it is so important that we build and cultivate positive heroes for our children to look up to.
Ray Edwards: It’s funny. I don’t think that I dreamed someday I would be a person who is saying those kinds of things. We need good role models for our young people to look up to but Ralph we do. We need them to know that there is a greatness and a goodness inside of each of them that they can aspire to.
Ray Edwards: They don’t have to become a rap star or a rock star or a multibillionaire to be worthwhile as a human being. There are heroes that they can look up to that they can now punch the clock eight to five Monday through Friday but live out values and do good works that they can not only model their lives after. Not only will they be rewarded with a good life but also they will be rewarded with the knowledge and satisfaction of knowing that they have done something worth while.
Ray Edwards: I think that so much of the desire for some of these unsavory things comes from a gaping need inside of young people. They want greatness in their lives and they are desperately searching for it. Unfortunately I think we are often not there to show them different alternatives.
Ralph Zuranski: What are some of the things that parents can do that will help their children realize that they too can be heroes and make a positive impact on the lives of others?
Ray Edwards: You know there is a campaign that has been mocked and it has been disparaged and made fun of but it has such a deep and true meaning. You probably have seen some of the TV ads that talked about things like this: Make sure you have dinner with your whole family at least a couple of times a week.
Ray Edwards: I’m not a Latter Day Saint, but The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints had an ad campaign that they ran for a long time. I think they still do. The tag line for the ad campaign was: Family. Isn’t it about time? I think that is the first and best step that you can take.
Ray Edwards: Spend some time with your kids. I don’t mean just go and zone in out in front of the television set and not have a conversation. American Idol is done and we go our separate ways.
Ray Edwards: I mean spend some time together with your kids. Beyond that if you want to be a role model for your kids then you have to be a role model. You have to model or practice the behaviors that you are trying to teach them.
Ray Edwards: You know something? Kids pay attention whether we think they do or not, whether they say they are paying attention or not they do pay attention to what you do. They do watch you to see if you are consistent with what you are telling them. I think that is so important if you are going to teach them values that you best make sure that you are living the values.
Ralph Zuranski: How true that is. Do you have any good solutions to the problems facing society especially racism, child and spousal abuse and violence among young people?
Ray Edwards: Well, Ralph, if I had the solution to those problems then I would be someone that I’m not. No, I mean beyond the things that we’ve been talking about I think that to a great degree the problems that we face, solving them is not a matter of what we do.
Ray Edwards: It’s a matter of us doing what we know. Often it’s the hard thing to do. That is a big question that I don’t have a ready made answer for other than I guess I have a belief that everything starts with me. That’s not to put me at the center and say, “I’m this all important thing but what I’m trying to express there is to say that we start within our own circle of influence.”
Ray Edwards: It’s one thing to look at society and say, “Boy isn’t society messed up? Somebody ought to do something about that.” It’s another thing to look around at the people in our lives and the situations in our lives and say, “What can I do that makes a difference right here?”
Ralph Zuranski: If you had three wishes for your life and the world that would instantly come true, what would they be?
Ray Edwards: It is probably not fair to say that my first wish would be for more wishes.
Ralph Zuranski: No, that’s not fair.
Ray Edwards: Three wishes that could come true instantly. Well, I don’t want to give a glib answer to this question. My first wish is a very selfish one and I realize that but I wish that all of the mean and nasty things that I’ve done in my life.
Ray Edwards: I wish that I could take them back right down to making comments to people that were unkind. I wish that those could be reversed. Beyond that, I wish that in the words of Rodney King, “I wish that we could all learn to get along.”
Ralph Zuranski: Me too.
Ray Edwards: It breaks my heart to think about the violence and the killing and the torture that is happening all across the globe. Many of us especially here in America tend to exist inside this little bubble of what life is like for us here. We kind of assume that this is the norm but the truth is that it’s not how things are in most of the world.
Ray Edwards: I certainly am not anti-American. I am not bashing us. I am just saying that it is easy for us to misunderstand what everyone else in the world is going through. I wish that we could all get along and that we could stop killing each other over ideas and be able to sit down and talk about them.
Ray Edwards: Then my third wish would be that we would use the resources that we have as a world of people to alleviate suffering. I have a belief Ralph. You are pulling some stuff out of me that I don’t even think I knew was in me.
Ray Edwards: I have a belief that we have all the resources that we need to feed everybody, to shelter everybody and to heal all of the sick in the world. We know we can’t cure all disease because this is not a perfect world that we live in but I think that in terms of food, shelter and medicine, the resources exist that we could take care of everyone if we could just get together.
Ray Edwards: It seems to be a tragedy to me that there are people suffering that don’t need to be and that there are people hungry that don’t need to be.
Ralph Zuranski: Yes, that is sad. Ray, I really appreciate your time and for answering those questions. I think that people who listen to this interview will really not only be educated but inspired.
Ralph Zuranski: As a final closing thought, what do you think about the In Search of Heroes program and its impact on youth, parents, and business people?
Ray Edwards: Well, I think that I have said it already and I will say it a couple of more times. I think what you are doing is admirable. I think it is very important.
Ray Edwards: We were talking just a few minutes ago, Ralph, about how it is one thing to look around at the world and say, “Wow, this place is messed up and somebody needs to do something about it.” We are all able to do that. Most of us probably do from time to time.
Ray Edwards: I think it is a lot more rare for someone to stand up and say, “I’m doing something about it.” I think that this program that you have put together is exactly that. It is a case of somebody standing up and saying, “I’m going to do something about this.”
Ray Edwards: This is my task that I can do to contribute to a solution.” I think it is interesting that you started this venture as an idea that was in your head, just one person. Look at how it has grown and look at the people that have become involved in it.
Ray Edwards: I was looking over the list of folks that have been interviewed and that you have been talking with and some of the things that you have put together. I realized that I am truly humbled that you asked me to be interviewed. I feel like I am in the company of people who are much more accomplished and probably are more worthy to be talking about these things than I am. I think this can serve as an example.
Ray Edwards: I think people should get involved. Business people, you have a powerful way of influencing people because let’s face it, what gets people’s attention, especially young people is money. You have a powerful avenue for influencing the world for the better.
Ray Edwards: I hope that many people will be inspired by and I know they are inspired by what you are doing with the In Search of Heroes Program will be inspired by what you are doing with the search of heroes program and what you are doing. I know they are and will contribute to it in whatever way they possibly can and will be inspired to go out and take more action of their own.
Ralph Zuranski: Boy, that’s great. I appreciate your taking your valuable time in answering these questions. I know some of the answers that you have created have helped me to have overcome a lot of the depression and difficulties that I deal with on a daily basis taking care of my mom and dad 24/7.
Ralph Zuranski: There are just so many things entailed in giving care for people that we love and are sick and close to death. I know you went through that with your Grandpa. I just really appreciate what you had to say.
Ray Edwards: Well, thank you Ralph. I hope that if anyone listens to this, I hope that I don’t ever come across as thinking that I know it all because I don’t. I know that I am far, far from being the perfect example of some of the things that I’ve been talking about. I was humbled that you asked me to participate and inspired by you asking me to participate.
Ray Edwards: I think it is interesting because I don’t know about other people who have been interviewed but I know now that I am going to sit down and take a closer look at some of the things that I’m doing. Wow, there is a lot of stuff that is really important to me that Ralph and I talked about and I need to make sure that I am living up to it.
Ray Edwards: I think this program does a lot of good in a lot of ways. Thank you so much, Ralph. I deeply appreciate the work that you are doing.
Ralph Zuranski: Thank you so much, Ray. You have a great day.
Ray Edwards: You too.
Ray Edwards is probably best known as a Direct Response Copywriter, Product Launch Manager, Internet Marketing Strategist and conference speaker.
Campaigns I’ve written and/or directed have resulted in an estimated $100 million in sales (if only all that money had been mine!)
I’ve had the good fortune to work with (and learn from) some stellar clients, including New York Times Best-selling authors Tony Robbins, Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen (creators of Chicken Soup for the Soul), Joel Comm (author of Twitter Power and The Adsense Code), Raymond Aaron (author of Double Your Income Doing What You Love) as well as Armand Morin, Alex Mandossian, Jeff Walker, and many others.
I speak frequently at seminars on copywriting, promotions and marketing, for professionals in those fields.
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Ray Edwards is one of the world’s greatest copywriters.
Ralph Zuranski: You know, I’ve seen you at a lot of the Internet conferences and you are sort of one of the unsung heroes of copywriting. You sort of hide behind the scenery and do a great job at persuading people through your copywriting. Could you tell us a little bit about how your copywriting is different and what exactly it is?
Ray Edwards: Well, absolutely. I would be happy to do that and let me start by saying that I am honored that you asked me to be part of this program. I admire what you are doing. It was really a pleasure when you asked me to be part of it so thank you for that.
Ray Edwards: What I do and what copywriters in general do is that we persuade people in print. That is the most basic definition. It can be more things than that. Basically copywriting is the art of persuasion using language. You might do it in print on paper, or you might do it on the web, or you might do it on audio, but it is all essentially the same skill. The distinction that I make between what I do and what others do is that I draw a distinction between persuasion and manipulation.
Ray Edwards: Let me just say that there are many great copywriters, people whom I admire and are my friends and who I believe are very ethical and who do practice the art of persuasion as opposed to what I feel is the darker art of manipulation. Here is the difference. This is the way that I define these two words. This is not what you will probably find in the dictionary.
Ray Edwards: To me, the art of persuasion means giving people the reasoning, the emotional freedom and the ability to do things that are right for them that they truly deep down want to do anyway versus what I call the dark art of manipulation which is basically tricking people into doing things that are not good for them and perhaps don’t want to do.
Ray Edwards: There are definitely techniques that writers can use to manipulate people and that speakers can use to manipulate people. I don’t practice those particular arts, but I think copywriting is the art of persuasion and anyone who has a product for sale or a service for sale can appreciate the fact that most of the people that they end up doing business with were not ready to do business at the very beginning of the process.
Ray Edwards: They had to go through a sequence of events. They first had to get to know the person or the product or the service. They had then to come to a point where they liked the person or they liked the idea of the process of the service. They had to reach another point where they trusted in the person, process or service. Then they bought.
Ray Edwards: Jim Edwards, who is no relation or no relation that I am aware of is a great marketer and a really stand up guy and a great human being. He sums up the process like this: Know me, like me, trust me, pay me. To me that is the greatest summary of salesmanship that I’ve found anywhere. That’s the process.
Ray Edwards: My job as the copywriter is to put the words on paper or onto the computer screen that lets people know you, like you, trust you and pay you. I specialize in writing copy for the Web and for Web sites in particular and for the whole process that moves people along that continuum.
Ray Edwards: For those that are interested it will be available at http://PowerCopySecrets.com and http://RayEdwardsCopywriting.com.